


Last Chance to Feel Human

by thepartyresponsible



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-14 02:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9156760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepartyresponsible/pseuds/thepartyresponsible
Summary: Instead of hiding out in Bucharest, Bucky solves the problem of the super soldiers in Siberia himself and then sets off to ask Bruce Banner for a favor.Or, how active problem solving means you’re too busy to instigate a civil war.





	1. Chapter 1

                In cryo, they don’t seem like monsters. Eyes closed, heads bowed, there’s a vulnerability to them that he maybe over-empathizes with.

                As he disengages the safety, he reflects on how, even when dealing with monsters, there’s something inescapably intimate about watching someone sleep.

                He shoots them quickly, neatly. There’s very little mess. Holes punched cleanly through their foreheads, and all of the innumerable threats, all the potential havoc they represent, gone. He recognizes that five lives are gone, too. But he knows once you’ve been fashioned into a weapon, whatever life you represent becomes a technicality.

                He lives, he breathes, he walks, talks, thinks, feels. But spit the right pattern of syllables at him, and he’s got no more soul than the bullets he’s just spent executing his comrades. A tool. A puppet. A plaything.

                It’s unforgivably irresponsible to let such a dangerous weapon fall into careless hands.

 

 

                It is not an easy thing, finding Bruce Banner. There are any number of other people trying the same thing. He casts their tendrils aside when he encounters them, loops them around into the next searcher’s, so they’re all chasing each other and none of them are chasing him. Or Banner.

                It still takes him upwards of three months, but he doesn’t mind. He has the time, and, if it were easy, he wouldn’t ever feel safe.

                He finds Banner in Rio, in _Cidade de Deus_. City of God. He has shadowy, half-memories of being here before, but it’s different now. Safer. There are still too many people, too many potential angles of threat to monitor, and his whole body is shaking by the time he worms through Banner’s window and carefully restructures Banner’s traps.

                Banner shows up just past dusk, dirty and tired, and he heaves out a heavy breath when he sees what’s waiting at his table. “If you’re here to kill me,” he starts and then seems to lose track of his words. He works his lips over his teeth, and then shrugs. Half-hearted. Resigned. “Good luck.”

                “I’m not.” He taps his metal fingers against the cheap wood and plastic of the table. He’s wearing gloves, and long sleeves. He’s been sweating since dawn. It feels like some crucial parts of him are defrosting, and his whole body aches and stings, coming back from frostbite. “Do you know me?”

                Banner’s eyes narrow and flick over his face. “You’re Steve’s.” He says, a possessive noun without an object. After a moment, he seems to recognize that’s not quite right, or at least shouldn’t be said so plainly. He waves a hand at him, almost dismissive. “Steve’s problem. Fury’s, maybe. Not mine.”

                He nods his head, because, in some sense, he does belong to Steve. But it’s the wrong kind of belonging. Obligatory, and toxic. Corrosive, maybe. Corruptive, absolutely. “I think I am your problem.” He says, ignoring the mention of Steve and redirecting to safer ground. “I’m in your kitchen.”

                “Yeah,” Banner says, “and welcome. You have a snack at any point, or would that have disrupted your whole menacing regime?”

                He grimaces and shifts his weight, tries to cock his head in a way that’s less aggressive, but Banner’s rising eyebrows suggest he doesn’t manage it with anything like grace. “I’m not trying to intimidate you.” He says, and, even in his own ears, he sounds a little lost.

                Banner huffs a breath and brushes past him. He smells like sweat and sunshine. He doesn’t guard his weak points as he moves through his range, and there’s something in Banner’s nonchalance that disarms him. Feels like a deadbolt clicking into place in his chest.

                “You wouldn’t scare me if that was a machine gun grafted to your shoulder.” Banner says after a moment, one half of his mouth pulling up in a small, uneven smile.

                He watches as Banner takes a dull knife and starts chopping vegetables. After a minute or so, he can’t smell sunshine at all, just the sharpness of onion. He doesn’t say anything, because what’s grafted to his side is more dangerous than a machine gun, and Banner has to know that already.

                He can’t imagine a mind that can look at him and see anything other than the threat he represents. He’s only barely capable of imagining a reality in which the sum total of him amounts to more than the number of ways he can kill another human being.

                “If you think I’m gonna help you,” Banner says, quiet and calm. He gestures with the knife, but it’s too lazy and indirect to be a threat. “If you think you’re gonna get to the others through me...”

                “I don’t.” He says. He wonders if Banner ever bothers to finish his threats, or if it feels too disingenuous, promising violence that he won’t enact himself. He would’ve thought that a man of science would take statistical certainties a little less personally, but then he thinks of Oppenheimer and all the researchers he's met on a more personal basis, and he supposes that maybe it’s a habit of scientists, sidestepping the bloody practicalities. “I don’t want to get to the others at all.”

                Banner looks up at him, reassessing. “What’re you doing here, then?”

                He swallows and looks down at his hands and at the gun he’s dissected and left spaced neatly across the table. He has worked on how to frame this since he pieced enough of himself back together to know that he’ll never be quite right, never have full control. He requires external regulation.

                This isn’t something he could ask of Steve Rogers, whose innate will to goodness could overpower and outmaneuver any form of brainwashing ever invented. But Bruce Banner’s the same as him, when it comes to it. Not quite as good in nature, not quite as strong in will. Vulnerable to outside interference, like an open wound always at risk of festering. Corruptible, in all the ways that count.

                And the two of them, they share an understanding of what it’s like to be put to some unwanted use and left, unassisted, to square with it afterwards.

                “You know what it’s like.” He says, because it’s best, he thinks, to acknowledge it out loud. “You’re yourself, and you won’t do it. You won’t ever do what they want you to do. But then you’re not yourself, and you do. And it doesn’t matter what you think or what you promise. You’ll do it again. And you can’t help it. Can’t be fixed.”

                He hears Banner clear his throat, but no words follow. He doesn’t look up, and he’s not sure if that’s because he doesn’t want to see Banner’s face or because he doesn’t want Banner to see his.

                “Okay,” Banner says. “But why are you _here_?”

                He closes his fist, then slowly relaxes it. Takes a breath. Reminds himself he shouldn’t hope for this, even though it’s weeks, months too late for that. “I won’t let them do it to you,” he says, “if you don’t let them do it to me.”

                There’s a long moment of nothing, and then the knife starts up again, methodical. Controlled. “Yeah,” Banner says, “yeah, alright. You can stay.”


	2. Chapter 2

                He owes an apology to Steve. To Steve and a few thousand others, but recently he’s made a dedicated effort not to tally the damage he’s done to strangers. Despite the pragmatic lessons his father worked so diligently to teach him, Bruce has always had a nasty habit of trying to make it right when he’s done someone wrong. With practice, he’s getting better at ignoring those instincts.

                It’s not that he faults the moral integrity of his natural inclinations. It’s just, at some point, it becomes a question of resource allocation. He’s done too much damage to ever break even. And the things he does now, the strangers he helps when he can, he knows damn well that it’s more about making himself feel better than it is about trying to tip those scales back to balanced.

                He owes an apology to Steve, though, because the man Steve’s been tearing up the whole world to find is currently curled up on his floor, thin blanket kicked off in the night, one hand cradling his gun to his chest and the other wrapped around the scarred flesh that marks where the metal arm binds to his shoulder.

                Bruce tells himself, optimistically, that he’ll never have to apologize to Steve, because he’ll never see Steve again. But he knows, however poor the odds of that actually happening used to be, he sunk his chances of staying out of Captain America’s orbit by taking in the Winter Solider.

He should be frustrated by that. Angry, probably. But he’s spent so much time filling himself up with white noise that it’s hard to care one way or the other if he gets what he wants. It’s an effort to care about anything at all, and Bruce supposes he’s always been a lazy, self-indulgent asshole when it comes down to it.

                “Do you want something?” The man says, suddenly. Bruce startles a little, because there hadn’t been any indication that the man was awake, not even a change in his slow, even breathing. That reminds him of Natasha. And also a little of Clint, when he goes still and quiet and settles somewhere high up and difficult to reach.

                Bruce finds that he doesn’t mind the reminder of Clint, but the thought of Natasha stings in warning, like picking at a scab too early. 

                “You’ve been staring.” The man says, opening his eyes and sitting up. He’s eerily robotic in the mornings, Bruce notes, which just serves to underscore what little bit of human being is left in him. Everyone else Bruce knows goes languid in early mornings, lazy and loose-jointed.

                “Yeah,” Bruce say, because the world is complicated enough without lying or denying the obvious when he doesn’t have to. “You’re cuddling a Glock like a teddy bear. That’s pretty fascinating.”

                The man looks down to where he’s still holding the gun. Bruce can see from here that the safety’s off, and he decides, graciously, that he’ll take that as a reaction to their surroundings rather than Bruce’s presence.

                “It’s not a Glock.” The man says, and the slight sneer that curls his upper lip is the first indication of personal preference that Bruce has seen so far. “It helps me sleep.”

                “Fascinating.” Bruce says, again. “You know, some people just take Ambien.”

                There’s a shuttered look to him now, which is something of a regression. When Bruce walked in to find him brooding over his kitchen table, he’d looked like a statue. Impersonal and impassive, something Tony would invent on a three-day bender and then melt down the next morning because it wasn’t interesting enough to justify its own maintenance. But by the end of the evening, when Bruce had fed him and dropped one of his pillows on the floor followed by one of his nicer blankets, he’d defrosted to something like a real human being. Or at least to an ungraded AI, something Tony might keep around for housekeeping.

                That’s gone now. He’s watching Bruce like he’s waiting for data entry.

                “I work,” Bruce says. He doesn’t need to fill silences; it’s just that it’s early, and he needs to leave soon, and it’d be rude, probably, to walk out without an explanation. “Today, I mean. Well. Pretty much every day.”

                The man nods and stands up, contorting quickly through what might be a set of stretches but looks more like an assessment of physical capability. Like, somehow, this man lives in a world where every morning he has to ascertain which joints are still functional and how many digits remain attached. Bruce doesn’t say _fascinating_ again, but it echoes in his head with a slightly desperate edge to it.

                “Should I leave?” The man asks. “Or go with you?”

                Bruce has been under the impression that opening his house to him would result in the sort of casual camaraderie he’d found at Stark Tower, where, with the exception of Tony, people were around when wanted and agreeably absent when not. He’s starting to realize that the status of this relationship might be tipping away from _housemate_ and more toward _adopted stray dog_.

                “Yeah, fine,” he says, because, unlike everyone else on his former team, he knows a lost cause when he sees one. “You can tag along.”

 

 

                Technically, Bruce is only in town until he runs out of sick people to treat. The obliging thing about impoverished, overcrowded areas is that there are so many untreated sick that he could stay for months if he wanted. Years.

                But Bruce never stays anywhere longer than a handful of weeks. And he’s already working through the logistics of leaving, because if he’s been found once, he’ll be found again, soon.

                “You speak Portuguese?” Bruce asks, as they start off in the morning.

                “Think so.” The man says, like that’s the sort of question that warrants a _think so_ sort of response. He shrugs at Bruce’s questioning look. “There was some—there’s a lot. In my head. It’s just that access is a little…patchy. Sometimes.”

                “Access to your own _brain_?” Bruce eyes his skull, trying to see what his scalp looks like below that ridiculous mop of hair, but the man sidesteps away and tips his head like he doesn’t want to be stared at, so Bruce refocuses on the street in front of them. “What do you mean, patchy?”

                He gets nothing for a while, and, when the answer finally comes, it’s just a quiet, mulish, “I mean it’s patchy.”

                “Okay.” Bruce says, and doesn’t get frustrated, because _patchy access_ is not his problem, and he’s not interested in making it his problem. “Well, if your Portuguese access is down today, let me know if you want anything translated.”

                “Don’t worry about me.” He says. Bruce doesn’t bother telling him he’s doing his best not to worry about anyone these days.

               

 

                He doesn’t translate a single thing for him all day. He seems to get along fine without it, although he doesn’t speak or respond when spoken to. Bruce is competent, not proficient, and he doesn’t have the right words or the motivation to explain the other man’s presence honestly, so he makes up new identities every time someone asks.  

                He stays out later than normal. He skips lunch, which is usual, and accepts dinner from a family with two sick boys, which is not, but he’s hungry, and it’ll be a late night.

                He portions out some of his dinner for his silent companion, gives him more than half because he feels bad for forgetting that other people eat more than twice a day. But most of the food gets shoved back onto his own plate, accompanied by a quick, incredulous look, so Bruce eats what he’s been given and doesn’t try to help again.

                On the way back, he says, “We should leave. Tonight.”

                There’s a long silence, long enough that Bruce starts to wonder if maybe that _patchy access_ extends to English, sometimes, but then the man nods, slowly. “Don’t have to.” He says, in a way that implies he’s done something to ensure that.

                Bruce rubs a hand over his face, digging into the permanently bruised skin beneath his eyes. He’s tired. It’s that old tired, the kind that makes a home inside and never quite finds an excuse to leave. He wakes up this way, every morning. So it doesn’t matter if he stays up all night, driving somewhere new, or goes to bed right now and sleeps for days. The way he feels doesn’t change, which makes it hard to justify wasting time resting when he could be putting distance between where people might find him and where they won’t yet think to look.

                He looks over at the man beside him, and he sees the slight slump in his shoulders, the way he’s walking, methodical and even but without the easy grace from this morning. It occurs to Bruce to wonder how far he traveled to get here, and how much sleep he got on the way. And if he got any sleep at all last night, on a stranger’s floor in a city he doesn’t know.

                What’s walking next to him is a spy and a serial killer, a terrorist. An assassin that’s half-robot in a way that goes beyond the bizarre piece of tech someone patched into him. Bruce figures this guy could march halfway through Bolivia without hitting empty. Would stay up all night, help Bruce pack what little he cares about, and then take his shift driving when the sun comes up. If Bruce asked.

                Bruce finds, oddly, that he doesn’t particularly want to ask.

                “Tomorrow morning.” He says, and he’s not sure what to make of the even look he gets in return. It doesn’t look anything like gratitude or relief or even agreement. It doesn’t look like much of anything at all.

                Bruce huffs out a breath and looks away. Some significant part of him already misses being alone. “What am I supposed to call you?” Because it’s been about twenty-four hours, and so it seems like maybe this is going to last awhile.

                The man furrows his brow and frowns down at the road beneath his feet. It’s the most intently focused Bruce has seen him.

                “Steve calls you Bucky.” Bruce supplies, helpfully. He gets a _look_ for that, and it’s sharp enough, offended enough, that Bruce actually laughs. “Alright. Well, how would I know? Patchy access, remember?”

                “I know my _name_.” He says, vehement and low.

                Bruce hit a nerve without meaning to. He adds that to the list of new things he’s learned about him today: _knows his name, does not appreciate insinuations that he does not know his name, does not own a Glock,_ and _might know Portuguese_.

                Also, _potential brain damage_.

                “Just.” He spits out the word and then flounders. He’s emotional, which is an odd look on him. Bruce regrets asking. “Bucky’s fine.”

                “I could call you something else.” It’s nothing to Bruce. It’s just a name. If they’re going to travel together, it makes sense to have something to call him. But Bruce knows what it feels like, to have one of the landmines buried under your skin set off unintentionally by a stranger. He feels bad, even if the more practical side of him insists that people need names. And this man, Bucky or Barnes or whatever he wants to be called, needs to find one he can stomach other people saying.

                “No, it’s fine. Bucky is fine.”

                If Bruce has learned anything from his temporary Avengers affiliation, it’s that, when someone decides that the only way to knock down a wall is to bash their own head repeatedly against it, the sane thing to do is to let them try until they figure out how to ask for help. Or watch them fail to learn a single damn thing and knock the wall down through sheer self-destructive obstinance.

                He's not arrogant enough to think he’s omitted from that particular pattern of behavior, but he’d like to think he’s learning. So he just says, “Alright, Bucky. Did you bring any climate-appropriate clothes with you, or would you like to borrow some?”

                Bucky makes a face at his name in Bruce’s mouth and then shrugs at the question. “I’ll get some tomorrow.”

                “Yeah?” Bruce says, amiable as he can make it. “We’re not stealing from these people.”

                There’s a slow, steady exhale of breath and a long, sideways look that manages to convey indulgence and polite disapproval. “Then I’ll need to borrow some.”

                “Great. Then you can pack them.”

                Bucky’s mouth pulls to the side, and he looks away, quick, but it’s the closest thing Bruce has seen to a smile. It makes things easier between them, ratchets the tension a little lower. It’s not a normal thing, the agreement they’ve made. There are no pre-established parameters. Need and understanding and a mutually beneficial arrangement does not add up to a friendship, and that’s not what they have. But there’s something reassuring, in knowing that someone who doesn’t quite smile at him today will also be around to not quite roll his eyes at him tomorrow.

                Bruce hates what the Avengers did to him for a number of reasons. He hates that, ultimately, they didn’t need _him_ ; they needed the monster he’d been made into. He hates what he helped them build, and he hates what he helped them destroy, and he hates, most of all, that he misses each of them, every day. Hates that every morning the realization that he’s alone again is a new and sharp shock, like waking up to find teeth missing.

                Being lonely is better than being weaponized. But he supposes it’s not wrong to wish he didn’t have to be either one.


	3. Chapter 3

                His brain is theorizing nonsense and guesses in full paragraphs now. It is an interesting progression. He remembers, not long ago, thinking only in long strings of facts and calculations. He remembers the jarring question – _who the hell is Bucky?_ – hitting his mind like a virus, eating the ticking heart out of the Winter Solider and replacing it with a shivery, half-mad thing that he’s still fighting to control.

                Banner is making that worse. Or better. All kills are relative, depending on the final target.

                Traveling with Banner is an education in successful interpersonal dynamics. There’s some meanness in Banner, buried deep, inherited from his father like his brown eye and sturdy shoulders. Bucky knows it’s there because he’s read the file. But Banner doesn’t seem interested in using any of it on him.

                Bucky dedicates substantial mental resources to calculating what Banner is thinking about, and, specifically, what he’s thinking about _him_. This is part self-interest and part clumsy reciprocity. It seems like Banner is forever thinking about Bucky. 

                “Here,” Banner said the morning they left, handing Bucky a t-shirt and a hooded sweatshirt so thin and lightly woven that he wonders what purpose it was ever intended to serve. “You’ll get heat stroke in those layers.”

                Or, “Here, I’ll fill up the car. Buy something to eat.” As he pressed money into Bucky’s hand and sent him toddling off toward the gas station like someone’s favored child, tasked with an important chore.

                It’s possible he does this because he wants to move quickly, and division of labor is the fastest way to accomplish that, but the longer Bucky is with Banner the better he gets at recognizing the way his casual, almost careless kindness tends to manifest.

                The first time they stopped, Banner bought something for them to share, and it was spiced so heavily with unfamiliar spices that Bucky couldn’t shake the idea that it was poison, that it was hot so he wouldn’t taste the chemicals shutting down his organs. He’d thrown himself out of the car before Bruce could finish breaking, and Banner had spent a quarter of an hour pacing quietly, studying weedy flowers breaking through the asphalt, while Bucky vomited the entire contents of his stomach across the roots of a helpless tree.

                After that, Bucky buys the food, and Bruce eats what he’s given. He complains only once, when Bucky brings back an entire bag full of multi-colored, brightly sprinkled pastries, curious about how they could possibly taste, what flavor a rainbow is meant to imply. Banner complains, but he eats his half anyway. Bucky doesn’t buy them again. He can’t trust sweetness like that.

                When the afternoon sun hits the windows and Bucky starts to sweat, Bruce runs the air conditioner in the car until goosebumps pluck up on his bare arms.

                Bruce walks first into buildings when Bucky stalls outside, spooked by the sourceless shadows he can see twitching in the entry way. He wanders calmly between Bucky and strangers, putting himself there when it’s some stranger sizing up Bucky or when it’s Bucky squaring off, angry, territorial. Bruce takes the first sip of poured water and sometimes the first bite out of a meal, when Bucky’s brain won’t let him have it, can’t stop calculating all his enemies, all the things he’s done to deserve assassination and the hundred, thousand ways it could manifest.

                Bucky doesn’t know what to do with kindness like that. It hits like the pastries. Sugary, easy sweetness, that he hasn’t done a damn thing to earn, and he can’t trust it because of how freely it’s been given.

                “I’m not fragile.” Bucky tells him, finally, on the third day. He can see how it’s maybe a little unexpected, since he jerked awake out of dead sleep not five seconds before. Bruce looks at him steadily, a little too casual, and Bucky starts to worry that maybe he’s been talking in his sleep this whole time, talking so much that Bruce is _used_ to it.

                “Okay,” Bruce says, after a beat. Agreeable, as he almost always is. “Does that mean we need to find a gas station? You hungry?”

                “You were supposed to wake me up.” Bucky says. He sounds _petulant_. He wants to punch himself in the throat. “You had the afternoon. I drove at night. That’s what we decided.”

                Banner drums his fingers on the steering wheel, and now he’s squinting at the road, abruptly fascinated by the same landscape they’ve been seeing all day. “You know,” he says, musingly, “Einstein said that time is rela—“

                “Oh, _bullshit_.” Bucky says, harshly. It’s a flare up of a dead personality, one that’s been resurrecting itself slowly for months now, and it makes Bruce laugh.

                It’s a nice laugh, even if it was startled out of him. It’s another thing Bucky didn’t earn.

                “Okay,” Bruce says, because Bucky is so mad now that he’s almost shaking with it. “Okay, alright. You can drive.”

                Bruce carefully maneuvers the car over to the side of the road, emergency blinkers on even though the rural road is completely abandoned this late at night, and Bucky concentrates on yanking the worst tangles out of his hair so he doesn’t punch his way through the dashboard.

                They climb out when they’re stopped. Bruce stretches as he walks slowly around the car, and Bucky doesn’t, because every one of his muscles is keyed up so tight he feels like maybe they’d shatter if he stretched them at all. Bruce settles in the passenger seat and kicks his legs out, so serene and relaxed that Bucky knows he’s doing it on purpose, projecting calm right at him, probably trying to shepherd him past this spike of sudden, aggressive emotion.

                “Stop trying to take care of me.” Bucky snaps at him, instead of keeping his mouth shut, as is probably advisable. “I don’t need you to take care of me. Alright? I don’t need anything from anyone.”

                Bruce rolls his eyes and stretches his shoulders. “Okay, so that’s what we’re doing now. We’re just spewing bullshit at each other. Great. That’s my favorite part of every road trip.”

                Bucky’s heart kicks in his chest, and it seems like his pulse triples, tapping out frantic Morse code in the exposed artery in his throat. Everything screams fight or flight, but there’s no one to fight and nowhere to run, so he takes it out on the car, pushes Bruce’s sturdy, sedate sedan until it’s roaring down the highway like a wounded animal.

                Bruce, who fusses in dismayed passive-aggression whenever Bucky so much as executes a rolling stop, doesn’t say anything until Bucky has outraced all his anger and has settled, finally, to more reasonable speed. Then Bruce exhales and stretches out his shoulders like he’s knocking away a weight. “Warn me next time, Barnes. I’ll put on a helmet.”

                “You don’t need a helmet.” Bucky says, just to be an asshole. If this is who he is, under all the decaying layers of Winter Solider, he doesn’t want it.

                “I meant I’d put one on _you_.” Bruce says, an asshole right back, and Bucky’s teeth flash in the dark, but he doesn’t know if he’s happy or just angry all over again. He’s not used to bared teeth meaning anything other than a threat.

                He’s not used to anything meaning anything other than a threat.

 

 

                Bucky steals an English newspaper in Sucre, because Bruce’s friends are the front page. Steve’s there, and he’s something to Bucky, too, but he’s not Bucky’s friend. Bucky’s not sure what the hell he is. Anyway, Bucky doesn’t steal the newspaper for himself. He doesn’t even read it, just shoves it out the driver’s side window at Bruce when he taps on the glass, patiently explaining that it is actually his turn to drive.

                “Hell.” Bruce says, exasperated, and nearly drops his coffee on himself while he struggles to catch the paper. It’s incongruous, his clumsiness. Doesn’t match the quickness of his mind. He has a scientist’s hand-eye coordination; it’s not _complete_ shit, but everything his hands do outside of a lab is just a little careless, never quite gets all of his focus.

                Bucky doesn’t mean to keep testing it, throwing things at him, dropping whatever he’s trying to hand him before Bruce is ready to catch it, but he’s not used to people who don’t work like he does. Bucky’s pattern of movement is _think and act_ , but Bruce’s is _think and then act_. Bucky wants to tell him that it’s a privilege to live like that, but it seems mean-spirited, so he keeps his mouth shut.

                “Your team got people killed.” Bucky says, after they have been driving for a while and Bruce has read what seems like the entire newspaper, including the advertisements, twice. He hadn’t planned to ask, because he figured Bruce would tell him, but he’s curious, even though he tells himself he shouldn’t be.

                “No.” Bruce says, and then makes an indignant little expression when Bucky raises his eyebrows at him. “Not my team.” Bucky’s eyebrows just climb higher, and he wonders if this is what it’s like when Bruce disowns you, if he just cuts everything you ever were right out of him, but then he goes on. “Wanda’s not my team. She killed them. It wasn’t Tony. Or Steve.”

                Bucky catalogs that order, and his bizarre reaction to it. One part of him cannot believe that anyone would ever list Steve Rogers in second place, but another part seems bored with it, unimpressed, unsurprised. The parts of Steve that Bucky remembers make him think this might be a regular occurrence, people overlooking all that Steve is for something flashier and louder. He thinks maybe he used to be that louder, flashier thing. Maybe that’s why he resents Stark so much.

                Or maybe it’s just that the way Bruce said _Tony_. Resigned, like getting people killed was what he did, but also defensive, like he’d never admit it, like he’d maybe fight someone else who did. There’s loyalty there. Bucky can’t tell if it bothers him because it complicates things, or because he’s jealous.

                And the spy doesn’t merit a mention at all. Maybe that’s the reason Bruce’s answer irritates him. She is, after all, the most like him.

                Or maybe he’s angry because that’s who he is now, a man with an emotional spectrum that ranges from _annoyed_ to _furious_.

                “People’re pretty mad about it.” Bucky says, blandly. It’s a trick he’s picking up from Bruce. Underestimation. Coming at things sideways, without ever really making contact at all.

                No one likes direct accusation. _People get nervous when you stare. People don’t appreciate a gun in their face. Sometimes, Bucky, visibly checking every exit makes people think you’re planning to bomb the place._

                “Yeah,” Bruce says and sighs. He folds the paper up and tosses it in the backseat. “She was always a bad idea.”

                _A bad idea._ It’s the first time Bruce has referred to a person as something less than human.

                There’s an odd note to his voice, an undercurrent of something it takes Bucky a moment to place. _Anger_ , he realizes, with a twist of alarm and unease. But a quick glance at Banner shows it’s not enough anger to be dangerous. It’s not something Bucky has to worry about. But, all the same, it’s enough to keep him quiet.

                When they stop to trade places, Bucky takes the newspaper and stares at the picture. He memorizes the delicate jut of her cheekbones, the thin line of her jaw, wonders if she always bares her throat like that, if her powers are tied to instinct or thought.

                Most bullets travel at 2500 feet per second. However fast she thinks, however good her magic, he can’t imagine anyone thinking faster than that.

 

 

                The next time Bucky steals a newspaper, he’s on the front page.

                He’s killed the king of Wakanda.

                Bruce is showering when Bucky gets back to the room they’re renting, and Bucky is anxious enough that he almost kicks the bathroom door open and goes in, but he’s worried that the water will ruin the paper, and also that Bruce might get a little hysterical about the whole thing. So he spreads the it out on Bruce’s bed, where he’s sure to see it, and he sits on the other bed, back to where Bruce will be when he notices and starts reading.

                This introduces any number of problems. He should be calculating the next step. He should be analyzing the extradition policies of the five nearest nations. But there’s white noise in his head, filling him up from brainstem to the backs of his eyelids, and so he follows Bruce’s motions instead. The simple pattern of them gives him something to focus on that doesn’t threaten to overwhelm him.

                He hears Bruce come out of the bathroom, tracks the soft pad of his feet across thin carpet. Hears the quiet intake of breath as the sees the paper. And then there’s nothing. Silence.

                “I didn’t kill him.” Bucky says, and it’s only when he’s said it, voice tipping up at the end, that he realizes it’s a question. That he’s _asking_ , when he should _know_.  

                “No,” Bruce says, brow furrowed, assessing him. “No, you didn’t, because you’ve been with me for the past three weeks, and I would’ve noticed if you’d caught a plane to Vienna last night.”

                Bucky exhales, hard, and it feels like something tight and choking unspools slowly from around his throat. He doesn’t want to look at Bruce anymore, and he wants Bruce looking at _him_ even less, so he puts his face in his good hand, the bone-and-flesh one, and breathes air back into his lungs.

                “Bucky,” Bruce says, cautiously. As if he’s finally realized that Bucky is dangerous.

                “It’s—I don’t _remember_.” Bucky tells him, even though Bruce hasn’t asked, even though the reason they’ve made it this far is that neither of them, ever, asks the other for any unnecessary details. “I’d do things, and then they’d take them away, and sometimes it comes back, but not in any order. I don’t know what they did. I don’t know what _I_ did. They had me more than fifty years. I don’t remember enough to account for five of that.”

                “Okay.” Bruce is getting closer to him. Bucky can feel his presence, can’t help tracking it, constantly, anytime anyone gets close to him. Bruce moves until he’s standing right in front of him, but Bucky doesn’t look up, can’t stomach looking at him right now. “But _I_ remember. And you’ve been here the whole time.”

                “I could have.” Bucky argues. “You’ve got a friend who shoots lightning from a hammer, and you’re telling me I couldn’t fucking teleport?”

                “What Thor does to the laws of physics is his own business. You’re not a god.”

                That’s comforting, somehow. Maybe it’s just the way Bruce says it, like it’s an excuse instead of a condemnation.

                “It could be me.” Bucky says. “Fifty years. It could be—I don’t know. A clone. It _could_.”

                Bruce makes a frustrated noise and puts a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, pushes him so he has to look up, look right up at him. “That’s still not _you_ , Bucky. Whoever did this, it wasn’t you. I told you, remember? I’m not going to let them do that you anymore.”

                Bucky grimaces and tips his head forward again, lets it fall into Banner’s chest and stay there. He counts the beats of Bruce’s pulse, makes himself breathe at Bruce’s pace until he feels his heart slow to a similar rhythm. The edges of the room reestablish themselves, and Bucky stops catching glimpses of the world like he’s trying to see through a shitty scope.

                Bruce is warm and steady, and it’s difficult to pull away. But this, all of it, is just one more thing he’s taking without earning it.

                He straightens and looks up at Bruce. “We need to move again.” He says, even though they’ve only been here, in this small, sleepy town, for a little over a week.

                Bruce huffs out a breath and narrows his eyes. His face skews up like he’s bracing for something unpleasant, and Bucky pulls back farther, straightens his shoulders, forces himself to be ready to hear that it’s time for him to leave, alone.

                The whole world will be looking for him now. Bruce can’t stay with Bucky.  Not if he wants to stay invisible.

                “We need to call Tony.” Bruce says, finally, and, for a long moment, all Bucky hears is that unifying _We_.

                Then the rest of it hits. “The hell do you mean, call _Stark_?”


	4. Chapter 4

                Bruce has stopped counting all the things he needs to apologize to Steve for. They run in his head, ticker tape when he’s trying to sleep. _Sorry your missing friend found me, and sorry I didn’t tell you. Sorry I had him for three weeks and never let you know that he was safe. Sorry I treated him like an experiment in a lab. Sorry I didn’t want you to influence the data._

_Sorry I would’ve left you in perpetual ignorance, if his face hadn’t gone international. Sorry, I know you worried, and I’m sorry that I just didn’t care enough about that._

And the latest: _I’m sorry that, when he needed help, I went to Tony, and not you_.

                Bucky’s not especially thrilled about it, either. Of course, as far as Bruce can tell, Bucky doesn’t seem inclined to welcome any kind of change at all. He is not, Bruce has noticed, an especially trusting individual.

                “We don’t need Stark.” Bucky says. “Why _Stark_?”

                Bruce watches him pacing the carpet, tries to gauge how long they’re going to have to argue about what needs to be done. “Okay,” he says, because Bucky’s got the kind of temperament that lends itself well to fighting. Sometimes it seems like he could set his shoulder against any stupid argument, dig his heels in, and push until he knocked the whole world out of orbit, he wanted to.

                Bruce admires that. He can’t remember ever having that kind of fight in him. He wonders if Steve and Bucky developed that independently, or if one of them taught it to the other.

                Bruce knows all this contrariness is a coping mechanism. He knows Bucky’s exerting every inch of will he has over every bit of space he can find. It’s not worth fighting him, but they have to call Tony, regardless of Bucky’s apparent low opinion of him.

                Bruce has been traveling with this man for weeks. He knows by now that the only way to win an argument with Bucky is to pretend like they aren’t having one.

                “There someone else you think we should call?” He asks, careful to keep his tone polite and curious rather than confrontational. “You know anyone else who owns considerable property in countries that don’t extradite to any U.N. nations?”

                Bucky narrows his eyes at him. He wants a confrontation. He’s keyed up, ready to fight something. Bruce can’t let that happen, because, if it does, it’ll end poorly for Bucky, not him.

                “Your billionaire buddy’s not gonna save me with money, Bruce. I don’t mean anything to him.”

                “You don’t know Tony, so you’ll have to trust me when I say that Tony’s inability to resist being right in the middle of every kind of trouble he’s ever met is one of his more reliable qualities.”

                “He’s a _scientist_ , Bruce.”

                So that’s it. _That’s_ what he’s worried about, that he’ll end up lured back into someone’s lab, where he’ll lose whatever autonomy he’s managed to piece together with the scraps of his mind they left relatively functional. Bruce understands that fear, but, as he hasn’t managed to cure it in himself, he can’t even begin to fix it for Bucky.

                “Technically,” Bruce says, “he’s an engineer.”

                Bucky’s face screws up, and he gestures sharply with his metal arm. “And who the fuck do you think made _this_?”

                “Not Tony.” Bruce says. “Every weaponized implant Tony’s ever made, he made for himself. He doesn’t experiment on other people.” He remembers Vision and has to amend, “At least not after they _are_ people.”

                Bucky’s eyes widen. “The hell does that mean? Did he Frankenstein some corpse?”

                “Well,” Bruce says, “no.”

                Bucky shakes his head and puts more space between them, changing his orbit so he’s closer to the door. “We are not calling _Stark_. He’ll sell me out.”

                Bruce sighs and sits down on the edge of the nearest bed, lets Bucky wear himself out pacing. “Bucky, I’m not going to make this choice for you, but you need to make it carefully. We’ve got two options. Either we don’t call Stark, and we run, and, _when_ we’re found, they take you, and try to take me, too. And then the Hulk destroys whatever’s and whoever’s in the immediate vicinity, and maybe he’ll help you, or kill you, or just let them take you. _Or_ we call Stark, who will help us, because he is my friend, and he is Steve’s friend, and he has a vested interest in proving that it was _not_ an enhanced human who murdered the king of Wakanda.”

                Bucky stops pacing and stares at Bruce. He chews on the inside of his mouth, rocks forward on the balls of his feet, and huffs out a sharp breath. “I’m pretty fucking good at hiding.”

                “Yeah,” Bruce says, “sure. But the entire world is looking for your face. So unless you’re feeling up to extensive back alley surgery, I think you need to reassess the likelihood of being able to permanently evade notice.”

                Bucky glares at him and crosses his arms over his chest. Bruce won’t leave him, so he starts bracing for when they’re found, when the choice of whether to stay or leave is ripped out of his hands.

                “ _Fine_.” He says, finally. He is entirely too tense. Bruce can almost feel it, the speed of his pulse, the way fear and anger have twisted themselves into something living, something trying to eat its way out of him. “Call him.”

                Bruce gets his phone without comment. He hasn’t turned it on since he bought it, secondhand, with cash. He keeps the battery zipped up in different pocket. It’s paranoid, sure, but he’s learned never to underestimate Tony’s skill, or his invasive, unending desire to know everything about everyone else.

                Bucky moves again, positioning himself at an angle that will let him see Bruce but stay out of view of the phone’s cameras. Bruce watches him, studies his expression, and he tries to think of something comforting to say, but he comes up empty. At some point Bucky will realize he’s safe, but, until he’s verified it for himself, there’s nothing Bruce can say that will make him believe it. That’s not the sort of trust they have.

                It’s not difficult to get Tony’s attention. The web of Tony’s attention has been cast so wide that it would be almost impossible to _avoid_ it. Bruce trips Tony’s traps one by one until the phone rings, and, when Bruce answers, Tony’s talking before he has a chance to say anything.

                “Bruce, buddy, pal, you know I’ve missed you, but this is _insulting_. What is this antiquated technology you’re using?”

                “Oh, something I lifted from a museum.” Bruce says.

                “ _Lifted_ ,” Tony sounds thrilled. “You’ve involved yourself with the criminal underground, Banner? Consorting with the street youths? Did they teach you that? And were they, by chance, from the mid-90s?”

                Bruce snorts. “From the early-1920s, I’d guess.”

                There’s a short pause and then Tony inhales. “You sly son of a bitch. You’ve got Steve’s runaway war buddy, don’t you? Has he tried to murder you? I’ve been told it’s a hobby of his.”

                Bucky makes a particularly nasty face, and Bruce sighs. “He’s been with me for weeks. Zero murder attempts. Can’t say he lives up to the hype.”

                “Well, besides me, who does?” Tony hums, and Bruce wonders how many plans he’s making, concurrently. “I’d like to judge for myself, though. Why don’t I come pick you guys up? I’ll grab Steve on the way. It’ll be a party.”

                “Actually,” Bruce says, “maybe don’t invite Steve.”

                “A _secret_ party.” Tony says. “Even better. Captain Buzzkill’s bad a parties anyway.”

                “Hey,” Bucky says, defensively. Bruce tries to explain to him, with a look, that _Captain Buzzkill_ is maybe the nicest thing Tony’s ever said about Steve, but Bucky just frowns at him and does not seem appeased.

                “I just don’t think he’s, uh. Ready. For Steve.”

                “No one’s ever ready for Steve,” Tony says, sympathetically, which just makes Bucky’s face cloudier. “I’ll be there in a few hours. You’ll be fine til then?”

                “Yeah, we’ll just stay in the hotel room.”

                Tony laughs, and Bruce rolls his eyes, but should have known better. “Just be decent when I get there. And don’t turn the phone off.”

                “Tony,” Bruce says, rubbing at the skin under his eyes, already tired of refereeing between him and Bucky. “Don’t try to activate the camera when you think I’m not paying attention.”

                “I missed you.” Tony says, so fast and careless that it has to be true. “I’ve missed your brain. And your face. And I want to make sure he’s not murdering you.”

                “Tony, you’re on speakerphone.”

                “Good.” Tony says, and raises his voice louder. “Hey, Barnes, keep that low grade Commie tech off Banner. I’m not bringing anything that’ll contain the Hulk.”

                “Keep running your fucking mouth about my arm, Stark,” Bucky says, “and I’ll shove the whole thing up your ass.”

                There is a brief silence. Bruce drops his face into one hand.

                “Oh, Bruce, he’s sweet.” Tony says, admiringly. “I can see why you’ve kept him all to yourself.”

                “I’m hanging up now.” Bruce says, but pauses, waits for Tony to say goodbye. It’s the least he can do. He didn’t let him last time.

                “Yeah, yeah. See you soon, Banner.” And then, again, like he’s lost faith in Bruce, can’t quite believe he’ll see him in a few hours. “Missed you. None of these paste-chewing morons can keep up with me.”

                Bruce smiles and hangs up the phone before Bucky can think of anything more explicit to say.

                “Charming,” Bucky says, like it’s the worst accusation he knows. “This guy’s your friend?”

                “Yeah,” Bruce says, and pries the battery out of the phone, because he trusts Tony, but he knows he’s not infallible. “My best one.”

                Bucky goes quiet after that. It’s a mutinous, irritated sort of silence, but Bruce appreciates the effort.

 

 

                When Tony shows up, he keeps the suit on. Bruce opens the door to find Iron Man standing in the hallway. Even the face plate’s still down.

                “Tony,” Bruce says, warningly. “Play nice.”

                “Never play any other way,” Tony promises, breezily, and sidles past him so he can see Bucky.

                Bucky has regressed so quickly and so thoroughly that Bruce hasn’t been able to talk to him for the past two hours. He’s standing in the back corner of the room, oriented toward the only exit that isn’t the window to his right. When Tony makes it past Bruce, Bucky's standing at attention, gun in hand but, thankfully, pointed at the floor.

                “Gotta say, Banner,” Tony says, taking in the implied threat, “you’re into some weird shit. You just put him in the corner with his gun when he’s bad? What’d he do, assassinate another monarch?”

                “Tony, for Christ’s sake.” Bruce forgot how much being around Tony can feel like being asked to play hot potato with a live grenade. Keep up, keep moving, or risk losing a limb. “Will you be civil? This has not been a good day for him.”

                “Oh, he has those?” Tony says, and the face plate finally clicks back, whirls quietly as it folds into his shoulders. “Good days, I mean.”

                “He does.” Bruce says, evenly. He doesn’t need to defend Bucky. Bucky’s perfectly capable of defending himself, if he wants to. But Bruce finds he can’t stand and listen to Tony needle him. “He’s had a lot of good days.”

                “And, tell me, does he _speak_ on those days? Or is he just functionally comatose with a bit more flair?” Tony steps farther into the room and then moves so he’s between Bucky and Bruce, and Bucky and the door. “Hey, Barnes, thought you were gonna try something stupid with that sophomore science fair project strapped to your side.”

                “ _Tony_.” Bruce says, and Tony looks at him, hands out, eyes wide, _who, me?-_ ing so hard that Bruce almost breaks and laughs. “We’re all science fair projects.” He says, instead. “You got more say about that than either of us.”

                “Consent.” Tony says, after a moment. “Yeah, that’s what I had when I hooked a car battery to my chest.”

                Bruce is tempted to fall into that trap, to let Tony talk about himself so he’ll stop talking about Bucky, but Bucky chooses that moment, of all moments, to finally open his mouth.

                “Sorry you didn’t enjoy it the first time around.” Bucky says. Stark tips his head slowly back toward him, and Bucky shrugs his metal shoulder, glints light right into Tony’s eyes. “The car battery hooked to your chest. Take that suit off, and we could try again.”

                Bruce wants to throw up his hands and yell that they deserve each other and that this right here, this nonsensical aggressive posturing that somehow always ends with Bruce accidentally smashing civilians, is why he wanted to be alone in the first place. But he’s afraid that any movement actually _will_ set them off, and he’s not sure, at this point, which one of them he’d feed obligated to protect from the other.

                “What a peach.” Tony says, finally. “I can absolutely see why you’re worth a rescue mission.”

                “I didn’t ask you to come here.” Bucky says, and he sounds furious, which is much better than the emotional void he’d been projecting for the past two hours, but isn’t especially helpful right now. “I don't need anything from you.”

                 “You don’t need anything from me? Fine.” Tony says. “I’m happy to leave you here.”

                Bruce is so angry at both of them that he almost lets them ruin this. Some part of him wants them to ruin this, so he can walk away, guiltless. Can add _Sorry, Steve, I tried to help him_ as the final entry on the list and be done with it.

                At that moment, as he imagines saying that to Steve, he realizes how angry he is.

                “I need the both of you to stop.” Bruce says, and he takes in one long breath and releases it, very carefully. “Stop talking. Right now.”

                Tony turns his back on Bucky so he can look at Bruce. “Comrade,” he says, taking a step away from Bruce. “I think we might have to call a temporary cessation of hostilities.”

                “I am not your fucking comrade.” Bucky hisses at him.

                “Shut _up_.” Bruce says, and, finally, they do.

                Bruce closes his eyes until he’s past the worst of it, and, when he opens them, the two of them are standing almost shoulder-to-shoulder, watching him. “Alright.” Bruce says. He focuses on the solution. It never does any good to acknowledge anything else. “Tony, you’re going to get us out of here. And then we’re going to convince the U.N. that Bucky didn’t blow up anyone’s king.”

                “Yeah, great,” Tony says, suddenly agreeable. “Sounds fun. Let’s go.”

 

 

                Tony landed a jet in a field of potatoes. Bruce knows he’s paid for it, probably threw enough money at the farmer to compensate for this inconvenience three or four times over, but he enjoys the way Bucky stares at Tony, brow furrowed, mouth turned down. It’s the kind of righteous disapproval Steve trots out on Tony all the time, but the slow flex of his hand suggests he’s willing to forgo that moral high ground at a moment’s notice.

                Bruce finds it charming. He thinks, idly and with no small amount of wonder, that he is losing the very last scrap of his sanity in a Bolivian potato field.

                “This was going to be food.” Bucky tells him. “For people. People who might’ve needed it to _eat_ , Stark.”

                “Good thing there’s a grocery store up the block.” Tony says, with that breezy arrogance he wields against Steve when he doesn’t want to have the argument Steve’s gearing up for, and hopes to distract him with by having another argument entirely. Tony’s much more comfortable arguing philosophically about what it means to be an asshole than he is trying to justify specific manifestations of it. He likes accusations: _you’re selfish_ and _big man in a suit of armor_ and _the only thing you really fight for is yourself_ , and not demands for explanation.

                Tony hates questions until he has an answer for them, and Bruce figures he’s never, in his life, been able to explain himself.

                “Anyway,” Tony says, as he turns his back on Bucky in what can only be described as an open invitation to punch him in the back of the head. “Can’t be that important to the local economy. It’s legal.”

                “Jesus, Tony,” Bruce says, as Bucky rocks his chin up, looks ready to spit at him. “ _Stop_ it. Bucky, ignore him. Trust me, that’ll hurt him more.”

                “You traitor.” Tony says. “Already selling our secrets to the Reds.”

                “Watch your mouth.” Bucky snarls, and Bruce thinks he’s really getting to be over-sensitive about the communist thing, but then he continues. “Bruce hasn’t told me anything about any of you. He’s not a traitor.”

                Bucky wears some of his landmines dangerously close to the surface. But Bruce can see, now, how he’d be oversensitive to accusations of disloyalty. He thinks its sweet that he’s so defensive on his behalf.

                “Barnes,” Tony says, with exaggerated patience, “do you honestly think I’d be here if I thought he was? I’m not here for _your_ smiling face, sunshine.”

                Bucky goes silent again and slides a thoughtful look between Bruce and Tony, but Bruce wants nothing to do with whatever unholy calculation Bucky’s trying to make, so he just steps into the jet and settles in one of the long benches to the side.

                Bucky, naturally, follows Stark right up to the cockpit and starts strapping himself into the copilot’s seat. Tony just stares at him, eyebrows halfway to his hairline, until Bucky’s adjusted the straps so they sit securely over his frame. Then Tony turns to Bruce and says, plaintively, “Bruce, he’s antagonizing me.”

                Bruce exhales and closes his eyes, digs his fingers into the bridge of his nose and then sweeps them into his eye sockets, tries to apply enough pressure to stave off the headache he feels brewing in his temples. “I swear to God,” he says, “I will put both of you in a corner and make you hold hands until you get along.”

                Tony snorts, but the obliging series of beeps and switch-flipping suggests he’s decided to take off rather than fight about it. “How dare you speak to me like that. I thought we had something. We created life together, Banner.”

                “Tony,” Bruce says, and it’s halfway between a plea and an indictment. “Come on.”

                “And you never write. You never call. There’s no child support. You left me to raise him on my own, and you didn’t even call on Christmas.”

                “Vision celebrates Christmas?”

                “He celebrates,” Tony takes a breath, pitches his voice down into a decent imitation of Vision’s even, deliberate tone, “the secular affirmation of harmony and human affection, and the metaphorical and astronomical implications of the solstice.”

                “Of course he does.” Bruce shakes his head and then laughs as he imagines Vision explaining that to the others. “What’d Steve say?”

                “Steve tried to take him to church. Nat said, if he did, Vision would end up exorcised or sanctified, and we get enough weird press as it is.”

                Bruce’s smile hitches a little at the mention of Natasha, and Tony seems to catch it a second too late. For a moment, they’re all silent, and then Bucky says, like he resents having to ask, like he’s tried very hard to work this out on his own, “What the hell do you mean, you two _created life_ together?”

                Bruce looks at the two of them. Tony’s staring at Bucky with his most insufferably smug smirk on his face, and Bucky is looking back, disbelieving, and suspicious.

                “That’s right, Barnes. You might have your charms, but you’ll never be able to give him a beautiful child.”

                “I am,” Bruce says, “actually disturbed by you, sometimes, Tony.”

                Bucky tips his head, eyes still narrowed. “Is this about the corpse that Stark Frankenstein-ed?”

                “My God, Bruce,” Tony says, in the face of that, “ _what_ have you been telling people about me?”

                “Because you’re not fucking around with me.” Bucky says, decisively, before Bruce can think of anything to say. Bucky rolls his shoulder, and his metal arm moves restlessly. “You and Bruce can dig up whatever corpse you want. But you stay the hell away from me.”

                 “Bruce,” Tony says, thoughtfully, after he considers Bucky’s face for awhile, “I’m revoking your PR privileges. You’re a smart guy, Bruce, you are. But you’re not allowed to talk to people about what we do anymore.”

                “Okay,” Bruce says, agreeably, because, of the three people in this jet, he’s the only one who knows how to walk away from a fight. “Bucky, I told you he doesn’t experiment on other people.”

                Bucky huffs and turns to look away from both of them, stares at the dash, instead. “The Hydra scientists would’ve said they didn’t either. Not everyone defines people the same way you do.”

                Tony’s jaw locks like he’s offended, but Tony gets his ego hurt all the time, usually by something completely unrelated to what’s happening in real time. Bruce admires Tony’s brain, but he’d never want to live in it. It never lets anything go, resurrects old hurts just to feel them in new ways. Sometimes that tenacity means he makes a breakthrough that no one else would’ve thought of, but, most of the time, it just means things are harder for him than they need to be.

                Bruce isn’t offended. Bruce is something else.

 _Not everyone defines people the same way you do_. The same way _he_ does.

                The two of them, they only ever promised each other that they wouldn’t let someone turn them back a weapon. It’s developed from there. It had to. It’s a natural progression. But Bruce isn’t sure how he’d define it now. He doesn’t know what they are.

                He called Tony when he didn’t have to. When he didn’t want to. When what he _wanted_ was to say hidden, for as long as possible. He called Tony, so Bucky would be safe.

                He doesn’t want to think about what that means, and he absolutely doesn’t want to try to vocalize it.

But he’s in a plane with Stark. He doesn’t have to say anything. Tony’s never met a silence he couldn’t improve with the sound of his own voice.

                “Don’t worry, Barnes,” Tony says, right on cue. “I won’t experiment on you.” He looks over at Bucky and smiles, bland arrogance painted over whatever it is he doesn’t want either of them to see. “You couldn’t afford my time.”

                Bucky stares at him, eye narrowed, mouth set in a line. After a moment, he nods.

                Bruce sighs and leans his head back. He has a lot of think about. He has a lot of planning to do. But the numbers won’t settle. There’s no use running statistics when the variables turn up question marks.

                He closes his eyes. He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but he’s made a habit of it lately, taking the easy way out.


	5. Chapter 5

                He doesn’t _like_ Tony Stark. It still feels somehow illicit, developing a preference. Safe around Bruce, maybe, but Stark’s a stranger. Some part of him still twists uneasily about it, like he’s a school kid breaking the rules behind the gym, or a POW hiding an injury that’ll get him dragged out from the others, strapped to a table. _Someone will notice. It will be used against you._

Stark’s abrasive. Stark’s _annoying_.

                Stark pitches his voice down low when Bruce falls asleep. He doesn’t even check over his shoulder when he does it.

                There is no reason to be jealous that Stark can tell, from the soft, sleepy exhale, or the change in the tension, or through some mysterious fucking psychic link, that Bruce is asleep. And there is no reason to be angry that Stark cares enough to quieten his voice, to let Bruce sleep.

                Bucky is both anyway. The whole thing throws him so badly that he doesn’t even register what Stark says to him.

                “What?” He asks, with a small, sharp shake of his head. He needs to focus. He needs to calm down. He needs a little less pissed-off Bucky Barnes and a little more robotic Winter Soldier.

                “He’s been alright?” Stark says. He says it in the same tone he’s been using to needle Bucky, so it takes Bucky a moment to understand that he’s being genuine. “I haven’t caught any Hulk activity. But it’s not just his anger that we worry about.”

                Bucky blinks at him. He’s angry all over again. It’s stupid. He’s known, all along, that Bruce has people who care about him. He’s not sure why confronting it makes him feel like he’s getting hit, over and over again, without enough time to catch his breath, get his head settled.

                “He’s been fine.” Bucky says. He tries to make his tone even, but it comes out like he’s saying something crude about Stark’s mother.

                Tony’s eyes narrow and flick over him, eyebrows to navel, and back up. Judging, or assessing, or running calculations about what size sensory deprivation tank he’ll need to install in his basement lab. “You always this aggressive? You’ll make Steve cry with manners like that.”

                “Don’t.” Bucky says, louder than he means to. He takes a breath and looks away, rolls his shoulders to give him some reason to move, something to do that isn’t punch his way out of this plane and take his chances with gravity. “I don’t want to talk about Steve.”

                “Well, that’s a fun twist. You’re all he’d talk about for weeks. We had to schedule a near-apocalypse to get him to shut up about you.” Stark’s still looking at him. Bucky can feel him staring, feel the weight of his focus. “But how much Barnes is really left in there? How much _anything_ is left in there?”

                “What the hell do you care?” Bucky snarls back, quiet, and it’s maybe the most he’s felt like Bucky all day.

It’s difficult to be Bucky when the Winter Soldier is so much less complicated, so much less exhausting. It’s been easier with Bruce, but with Stark, it’s like walking on razorwire over a gulf. It’s brittle, and it cuts, and he’s going to fuck it up, irrevocably.

                Stark rolls his eyes at him, but one corner of his mouth tips up for a second before his expression changes to guarded, and serious. “I don’t care about you.” And Bucky may not like him, but he appreciates how he says it. Honest, unapologetic. “But people I _do_ care about seem to care a whole hell of a lot about you. And that can make people stupid.”

                “Does it make you stupid?” Bucky asks. It’s a transparent play for redirection, but Stark seems to love talking about himself. “Caring about people?”

                Tony snorts at the question. “Nothing in this world can make me stupid, except Vegas odds and your body weight in tequila.”

                There’s so much bravado in him that Bucky _wants_ to take him apart. That’s the worst part of everything, the way the Winter Solider has bled into Bucky, taken the worst parts of him, made them useful. The Winter Soldier’s just a weapon. All the terrible, creative things he did, all the interesting ways he hurt people, that was him, not the Asset. That’s the hardest thing to square.

                “But stupid’s a long way down for me.” Tony says, after a moment. “I’ll grant that I may fall from genius to gifted.”

                “God,” Bucky says. “How does Steve _stand_ you?”

                Tony grins then, a quick flash of teeth and a light in his eyes. He looks over at Bucky, sidelong, a smirk curling his mouth up sideways, and Bucky gets, suddenly, why people might humor Stark so much. Why being part of something Tony approves of, something he finds interesting, might feel like the kind of validation some people need.

“First day we met,” Tony says, laughing, “he tried to fight me.”

                “ _Steve_?” It works, sometimes, if he doesn’t think about it. Memories that flash across the surface, vague reflections on a mirror. If he thinks too hard, they’ll go away. “What the hell did you do? Insult a lady’s honor? Try to autograph his shield?”

                “He’s pretty easy to rile up, actually.” Tony says, with the casual insight of someone who makes things like that his personal hobby. “The way Dad talked about him, I figured stalwart Captain America would be a little harder to provoke.”

                Bucky _does_ grin then, but he tips his head away. He doesn’t want Stark taking credit for Steve’s work.

                He feels happy now, a little. And _proud,_ which is just as ludicrous as all that anger. He doesn’t have any claim to Steve. The person Steve knew is dead. The person who knew Steve is dead. He shouldn’t feel so damn smug that little Steve tried to fight Tony Stark.  

                “You’re pretty easy to rile up, too.” Tony observes.

                “You gotta find a way to piss everybody off?” Bucky asks. “That your thing?”

                “I think it’s useful to know.” Tony says, and Bucky can imagine that Tony justifies a lot of things that way. It’s probably how he ended up strapped in a metal suit, shooting rockets at aliens and evil robots. “And if you and Bruce are going to be playing house together, it’s best to ascertain what kind of anger management skills you have.”

                Bucky skips right over _playing house together_ like someone’s come along with a permanent marker and redacted the whole thing. Whatever Stark’s fishing for, he’s not interested in that particular bait.

                “You gathered any interesting data yet?” Bucky asks, instead. Redirecting, reflection. It’s easy with Stark. He’s starting to suspect that Stark’s allowing it to be.

                Tony hums and doesn’t look at him, busies himself with the display for a few seconds. When he finally answers, he still doesn’t bother to look at him. “You want to learn to fly this thing?”

                Bucky blinks. He wants to call him out, ask the question again, but if this is what they’re doing, if they’re coexisting by humoring each other’s absolutely transparent attempts at deflection, then he supposes he’s made worse bargains with worse people. “Yeah, alright.”

                “Well, Jesus, Barnes,” Tony gripes as he leans forward, toggles something that makes the entire panel in front of Bucky suddenly flicker to life, “don’t do me any favors.”

 

 

                Stark drops them on an island and leaves the jet with them. Bucky stares after him as the Iron Man suit fades into a red blur. “Is he serious?” Bucky asks Bruce, who is rumpled and drowsy, stretching the sleepiness out of his joints. “Is he leaving us with this? He taught me how to fly it.”

                Bruce yawns and steps up beside him, squints in the distance after Stark. “Well. You’ve got to think about it from his perspective. I’m indestructible, and he hasn’t left you with anything else worth worrying about.”

                “A _private jet_.” Bucky says. “A _weaponized_ private jet.”

                Bruce shrugs. “If you blew it up, you’d just give him an excuse to design a new one.”

                “I could use this to kill the entire Senate.”

                “Oh, I doubt that.” Bruce says and regards the jet with a fond, indulgent smile that, bizarrely, makes Bucky feel like maybe he should’ve taken one of those opportunities to punch Stark in the face. “There’s probably a failsafe that’d trigger it self-destruct if you tried. So you could destroy it, sure. But he gets a little sensitive these days when people try to kill each other with his toys.”

                “Is that why he gets serious about the Hulk?”

                “Wow,” Bruce says, turning to look at him. For a second, it seems like maybe he’s finally going to get angry, finally fight Bucky about something. But then he softens and smiles, which really only makes Bucky angrier. “You let Tony in your head, huh? Careful with that. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

                “I’m fine.” Bucky snaps and sends one last glare after Tony, wishes him a terrible flight. “Where do you think he’s going, anyway?”

                “Hm. He didn’t say?” Bruce looks to Bucky for a reaction and then grimaces at Bucky’s blank stare. “If he didn’t say, then he’s probably on his way to tell Steve how we are.”

                Bucky lets that sit for a moment and then says, calmly, “I’m going to murder that mouthy trust fund bastard.”

                “Not _where_ we are.” Bruce says, placatingly. “ _How_ we are. That you’re alive. That you didn’t murder the king of Wakanda.”

                “I don’t trust him.” Bucky says, as if that needs to be vocalized. As if anyone in their right mind would trust Tony Stark with anything more important than tech support.

                “I do.” Bruce says. He ignores the incredulous look Bucky sends his way and kicks curiously at the sand under his shoes. “Tony’s one of only two people I know who aren’t afraid of me.”

                “He’s an idiot.” Bucky says, and he’s aware that he’s being childish, that his problems with Stark have spiraled rapidly out of any sense of proportion, but he can’t help it. Everything Bruce says about him just makes Bucky hate him more.

                Bruce smiles, wry and amused and a little bit sweet. “The second one is you.”

                For a moment, Bucky’s entire respiratory system seizes up. It’s so unexpected that he shifts fully into the mindset of the Winter Soldier, thinks _systems check, analysis, damage report_ , and then _for fuck’s sake_ and then he’s back. He breathes out. He says, mulishly, “Yeah, well, I’m an idiot too.”

                Bruce shrugs and looks at the sand, kicks a few more times. “This is interesting. It’s the wrong sand.”

                “Oh, right. Stark said there’s gun turrets buried around the perimeter.”

                Bruce laughs and shakes his head. “Of course there are.”

                “He said he built this place when he thought he was going to have a honeymoon.” Stark had said it casually, like it didn’t hurt at all, but Bucky had wondered. The look of surprise that crosses Bruce’s face suggests maybe he’d been right.

                “Wonder what happened there.” Bruce frowns and kicks at the sand again, a little less gently this time. Bucky wants to warn him about the sensitivity of the gun turrets, even though he knows Bruce isn’t nearly as delicate as he looks. But he stays quiet. Bruce is never careless. “Guess I’ve been gone too long.”

                “You think you’ll have to go back?” Bucky asks. “Once this is sorted?”

                “It’s never really sorted.” Bruce says. He sounds tired. He smiles at Bucky, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “And I always have to go back. Sometimes I get a vacation.”

                Bucky doesn’t know what to say to that. He hopes to God it isn’t true. At least not for him. He’d never say it, because he knows it isn’t fair, but he’s endlessly jealous of the fact that, when the Avengers use the Hulk as a weapon, they do so with good intentions. It might feel the same, at the heart of it, but Bucky wishes like hell that Hydra had used him the same way.

                “This is nice.” Bucky says. “For a vacation.” He looks at the waves and tries to relax the tight muscles in his shoulders. Bruce smirks at him, like he can see exactly how spectacularly Bucky’s failing.

                “Yeah,” he says, “gun turrets, housecleaning bots. A jet with a rocket launcher in case we need to run into town for supplies. Rustic.”

                “Stark said I could drink his whiskey if I could break the lock.” Not that Bucky’s all that interested in Stark’s whiskey. But he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t interested in the challenge of getting into something Stark told him he couldn’t. “He said I’d probably couldn’t, even with your help.”

                “Fun,” Bruce says, like he means it. Like Bucky’s just suggested parasailing or snorkeling or whatever it is people do to entertain themselves when they aren’t hiding out from every first world government on the planet. “Let’s go hurt Tony’s ego.”

 

 

                It takes three hours to break into Stark’s liquor cabinet. At hour two, Bruce contacts Vision, gets him to send over a copy of Stark’s palm print.

                “I am not sure,” the strange red Frankenstein murmurs, staring earnestly out at them from the screen of the laptop Bruce had broken into during hour one, “that this is entirely appropriate. Or the sort of thing that should be digitized and passed around.”

                “How many layers of encryption would make you feel comfortable, Vision?” Bruce asks, with that edgeless patience of his. It’s an odd thing. Not the sort of patience Bucky knows.

                Bucky can stay on a rooftop for twenty-four hours, alert, waiting for the target to walk through his sights. Bucky’s patience isn’t just edged; it’s baited like a mousetrap, sedate as a spider’s web. Bruce’s temperament goes another way.

                Vision frowns back at them. Bucky hadn’t planned on looking, at first, but after the conversation stretched past the first handful of minutes, he’d leaned over Bruce’s shoulder, narrowed his eyes at the eerie face staring back. Bruce let him do it, didn’t tense up or flinch away even when Bucky was practically breathing on his neck.

                Bucky probably would’ve punched Bruce if he’d done that to him.

                Today has been a series of lessons in the ways their friendship is unequal. Bucky should make more of an effort, or at least not take every advantage Bruce hands to him, but he’s starting to learn that, while the Winter Solider’s a monster, Bucky Barnes probably isn’t going to win many moral victories, either.

                “And the point of this is alcohol?” Vision asks. “Surely there are easier ways to acquire it.”

                “The point of this,” Bruce says, encouragingly, “is Tony’s ongoing education.”

                “Ah. I see,” says Vision, who clearly does not. “Well, if you’re sure.”

                “We are.” Bruce says.

                Vision nods, makes brief eye-contact with Bucky. He seems momentarily at a loss and then looks back at Bruce. “I’ll send it to you shortly.”

                “Awfully formal with your kid, Bruce.” Bucky says, after Bruce and Vision have passed a series of polite goodbyes back and forth, and Bruce has shut down the call.

                “I was more of a midwife than a father.” Bruce says. “Tony likes to take a lot of the credit, but then there’s Thor. Ultron. Cho.”

                Bucky nods, slowly, and gives up on trying to reason out the logistics of that almost immediately. “The future doesn’t make any damn sense.” He says, finally. “No flying cars, but four men make a baby?”

                “He actually showed up fully-formed.” Bruce says. “And Cho’s a woman.”

                “Oh.” Bucky says, comforted. “A woman. No one said there was a woman.”

                Bruce squints at him and his lips push together the way they do when he’s watching someone make a mistake. “I’m pretty sure whatever assumption you just made is incorrect.”

                Bucky considers that for a moment and then shrugs, because it almost certainly is. “Are we going to open this thing or not?”

 

 

                In retrospect, Bucky can see how, when they opened the liquor cabinet, the best plan would’ve been to leave its contents alone.

                He is willing to acknowledge that when he instead opts to grab four separate bottles (startled by the plethora of options, lured by the ability to choose,) and pours what he suspects is an unreasonable amount of each into four separate glasses, he makes two errors in judgment. The first is that he assumes Bruce will be drinking with him. The second is that, when Bruce declines, Bucky’s Depression-era sensibilities convince him that waste is a sin.

                He’s been drunk before. As Bucky, sure. As the Winter Solider, sometimes. As this hybrid, half-nothing, untethered man, he’s never been anything but sober. As his fine motor skills and his ability to regulate the consequences of his emotional spikes start to degrade, he recognizes there’s some danger in that. In him.

                He’s always dangerous. Always, always, always. To everything and everyone. It seems odd that a lowgrade liver toxin can make him feel so unmoored, but he’s willing to admit that his capacity for self-control has been somewhat compromised by whatever has been going on in his head. The resurrection of Bucky Barnes, and the slow rot of the Winter Soldier, and the unnerving presence of Bruce Banner, and the impact of withdrawing off of all the chemicals Hydra regularly pumped through his system.

                He does the reasonable thing. The right thing. He quarantines himself for the safety of the general public.

                He takes his favorite bottle with him and goes to sit out on the balcony railing, kicks his feet in time with the waves he can see cashing against the rocks below. He drinks and watches the sun set, and then Bruce comes out to check on him.

                “You going to jump?” Bruce asks. “It’d be unkind. To Steve, who probably just heard you’re back. And to me. Be a hell of a mess.”

                “Wouldn’t kill me.” Bucky says, gauging the drop. “Break both ankles, probably.”

                “Sure.” Bruce says, and wraps his hands carefully around the railing. “If you land on your feet.”

                “Oh, yeah.” Bucky says, reconfiguring the angle. “Yeah, that’d kill me. Broken neck. Probably enough force to shatter the skull. Could see gray matter, if I hit the edges right.”

                “Would prefer you didn’t.” Bruce says. “If we’re taking a vote.”

                “I’m not going to jump.” Bucky says, after a beat. He hadn’t meant to upset Bruce. He realizes the gray matter comment was maybe a bit more graphic than necessary.

                “Okay.” Bruce says. “That’s good. You mind coming down off the railing?”

                “I like it up here.” Bucky says. It’s a strange reason to do anything. He _likes_ it. He _wants_ to.

                He has distant memories of using altered versions of that as some kind of defense, a plea. _I don’t want to, I don’t want to, please don’t make me, I don’t want to._ Hadn’t worked then. Hadn’t mattered.

                “When things don’t matter for long enough,” Bucky says, right over the top of whatever Bruce had been about to say, “you just stop wanting them. Right? It just goes away. You fucking—you just figure it out. You learn. You’re trained.”

                Bruce’s forehead crinkles up, and his mouth folds down, and Bucky hates the way pity looks on his face. “Bucky--”

                “No.” Bucky says, loud. Unnecessarily loud. So loud that it echoes, a little. “I am staying up here because I fucking _like it up here_.”

                “Okay.” Bruce’s hands are wrapping tight around the railing and then letting go. Repeatedly. Grip, and release. He’s agitated. “You’re drunk, and you’re sitting on a railing. The whole house is full of nice places to sit, Bucky. Come on.”

                “I like this one.” Bucky says. He is distantly aware that everything he’s doing right now is ridiculous, but that awareness only makes him angrier, more hellbent on staying to this stupid course.

                “Bucky,” Bruce says, and _now_ there’s an edge to his calm. Now there’s a timeline. Bucky can almost see an ending to it, if he squints, if he lets it go that way. “Bucky, this whole situation is going to get really stupid if I have to drag you down from there.”

                And Bucky, just to be an asshole, hooks his metal hand around the railing, flips himself up into a handstand, and then lands on his feet. The railing wobbles, but he doesn’t. Bruce looks like someone just gut-punched him.

                “Bucky, _get down_.” Bruce says, and it is the loudest Bucky’s ever heard him.

                “Do you have any idea what I can do?” Bucky asks, balancing up on his toes. “I’m drunk. I’m not incapacitated. I know the limits. They tested them. A lot. They were very thorough.”

                “You have exactly five seconds,” Bruce says, voice quiet again but twisted down into something mean, “before I haul you down from there.”

                “Look at that,” Bucky says, mean right back. He jumps down and lands in front of Bruce. Entirely too close. Bucky has no memory of being this close to another man without killing him. “Bruce Banner finally found something he wants to fight about. Guess you’ve been fighting drunks your whole life. Guess you’re trained, too.”

                Bruce sucks in a breath, and his eyes flash green, and Bucky thinks, giddy and guilty all mixed up in one sickening lurch in his stomach, _oh, fuck_.

                “Yeah, you know what,” Bruce says, and he _is_ mean. It’s in him, the same way it’s in everyone. Bucky thought it would be a relief to see it, but that’s not what he’s feeling right now. “I changed my mind. Feel free to finish that bottle and jump. Steve’s not missing much.”

                Bucky opens his mouth, and he thinks he’s going to yell. Something nonsensical, probably not English, _maybe_ Russian if his brain recovers from the sting fast enough to form words. He also thinks maybe he’s going to punch Banner right in the throat, make him shut up, make things between them as ugly and violent as Bucky feels.

                Instead, he laughs. Sharp and high, surprise cut with what might be a hint of hysteria. “Fuck,” he says. “ _Fuck_. Look at you, you’ve got teeth. Shit.”

                Bruce looks momentarily at a loss. He’d set his shoulders – and his jaw, Bucky noticed, exactly like someone who’d been taught, too young, how to take a hit to the face – like he was braced for a weight, and now he’s wrong-footed. He watches Bucky carefully for a moment and then shakes himself. The tension bleeds from his shoulders, but his eyes are still wary, and there’s a stiffness to his mouth that says he’s still ready to fight. “Sorry,” he says, but doesn’t fully commit to it. He _might_ be sorry, but he is still definitely pissed. “That was mean.”

                “I earned it.” Bucky says, with a shrug. It’s easy to forgive Bruce. It feels good, somehow, to have something to forgive Bruce for. Gratifying to know that he’s not a saint.

                There’s so much sweetness in Bruce Banner that Bucky thinks, sometimes, if he broke him to pieces, he’d find sugar in the marrow of his bones. That’s not the sort of person Bucky can ever feel right with. That’s why he’d gone to Bruce, not Steve, in the first place.

                “You’re not well.” Bruce says, and takes the bottle away from him. Bucky lets him, even though he doesn’t have to. Bruce is sturdy, broad-shouldered, steady. Bucky is lean and getting leaner, dropping muscle mass every week, but Bruce couldn’t take anything from him that Bucky didn’t want to give up. “You’re not well, and you’re drunk.”

                “You’ve got stop trying to take care of me.” Bucky says. They are still entirely too close. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. And he can’t understand why Bruce is letting him do it. “You have to.”

                Bucky’s not sure how many other times, or ways, he can say that. He doesn’t know why Bruce never listens.

                “You’ve got to figure out a way to let me.” Bruce says, voice still low and tight. This is what Bruce looks like when he’s angry. Jaw tense, eyebrows together, and still caring too damn much about the thing that’s hurting him. “I don’t know everything they did to you, but I know you’re salvageable. I know you can come back from it. You’re fighting the wrong people, Bucky. You need to let me help you.”

                It hits suddenly, out of nowhere. The ludicrous urge to kiss him. Lean down a little, one hand palming the back of Bruce’s neck, and kiss the lips Bruce has twisted up in a soft frown of confusion.

                He almost does it, because he wants it so bad. Because he _wants to_ , just like he’d wanted to be up on that railing. For no reason other than he thinks it would feel good, because some stupid, selfish part of himself wants a thing that makes no sense.

                Stupid, reckless, self-destructive. And he’d hurt Bruce, too. More collateral damage in Bucky’s never-ending quest to destroy everything that gets anywhere near him.

                “I’m going.” Bucky says, committing to the verb without any idea of how to finish the sentence. He steps back. He realizes, when he does, that Bruce has been staring at him. At his _mouth_. “To bed.” He says, wielding it like a shield. “Gonna sleep this off.”

                “Okay,” Bruce says. There’s still too much tension in him. Bucky can think of a few ways to help with that, but doesn’t know a single one that won’t end up making it worse in the long run. “Beds are that way.” Bruce adds, after Bucky’s been quiet for too long. He points back over Bucky’s shoulder, helpfully.

                It’s on the tip of Bucky’s tongue to ask _You wanna show me?,_ so he turns around, fast, and starts walking. Doesn’t stop until he finds himself in an empty bedroom, with a whole wall of floor-to-ceiling windows showing the sea and a too-large, too-empty bed that has too-soft sheets.

                He kicks his shoes off and crawls into bed fully clothed. He takes deep, even breathes and holds himself perfectly still. It takes two full hours to fall asleep.

 

 

                The soft pad of footsteps wakes him up. He thinks it’s Bruce. It’s a stupid, optimistic assumption. By the time he knows better (smell’s off, breathing pattern is faster than anything he’s ever heard from Bruce), it’s too late. The syringe hits the meat of his shoulder and empties, and the numbness starts spreading immediately.

                He opens his eyes. There’s a thin, dark-haired man above him. There’s nothing in his eyes but an anticipative curiosity. He steps away as Bucky tries to trash, fails to even roll himself out of bed. He has Bucky’s gun in one hand and, in the other, he’s holding a small red book. He opens his mouth, and starts speaking in Russian.

_Longing. Rusted. Seventeen._

                Bucky panics. It opens up in him like a cliff, a chasm. A pit.

                His thoughts devolve into a cacophony of pleas and curses and denials. He doesn’t have _time_ , and half his body is already numb.

_Daybreak. Furnace._

_Nine. Benign._

                That makes him think of Bruce. _Benign_.

                As far as he knows, there are three people on this island. Bucky, Bruce, and the man reading the book. And if he wanted Bucky dead, he could just empty Bucky’s gun into his head while Bucky lies in bed, twitching.

_Bruce_. He thinks. _Bruce_.

                The Winter Soldier can’t kill Bruce, but he can get close enough to scare up the Hulk. He can make Bruce kill _him_.

_That_ , he thinks, in a moment of clarity that rises above the panic, _is the shittiest fucking thing_.

_Homecoming_.

                Whatever paralytic agent has been injected into him, it’s having trouble with the nerves patched into the metal arm. He’s losing feeling, doesn’t have the capacity for much. Can’t get out of bed, can’t fight back.

                Bruce grabs the only thing he can reach, the shiny tablet on the bedside table, and he hurls it, right at the glass wall.

                The whole wall shatters. An alarm starts up.

_One._

_That’s it_ , Bucky thinks. _That’s your warning, Bruce_.

                And then _freight car_ and Bucky doesn’t think anything. The whole world’s static.


End file.
